“I always wanted to go as far as possible from the place where I was born. Geographically and spiritually. Leaving everything behind”, Paul Bowles
Tangier is a cosmopolitan city in the very north of Morocco overlooking Gibraltar and Spain. It is also called “Door of Africa”.
From 1923 to 1956, Tangier was a magnet for writers, painters and spies who were looking for a refuge here. Tangier was an international free zone where people could enjoy hashish and various opiates of that time. Nothing was off limits. They dressed freely and chose the gender of their partners in the same way.
Tangier was a cultural hub on the Mediterranean for thousands of years, where both Jews and Muslims lived in peace. However, in the West it is mostly being talked about the Tangier from interbellum, when the city used to be a wild playground for hedonists.
A city of immigrants, those yearning for something or someone… Many came and just passed by, others stayed.
Writer and composer Paul Bowles wrote the novel “The Sheltering Sky” here, based on which Bertolucci made a famous movie. He stayed in Tangier for the rest of his life, and his romanticised vision of this city is present to this day. A city of dreams that have become an inseparable part of reality.
Matisse found his inspiration in “the soft light”, bright colours and exotic architecture, just like Delacroix, who came to Tangier before him, did. William Borough wrote his legendary novel “Naked Lunch” here with assistance of hallucinogens that were easily accessible.
However, we should leave the past behind and move on. Tangier has an identity other than the one based on stories of artists from back in the day.
The first place I wanted to visit in Tangier was the concept restaurant Alma Kitchen & Coffee. It was founded by jewellery designer Lamiae Skalli and her husband art photographer Seif Kouzmate. They are a part of a new generation of creatives from Tangier who are taking the initiative to reclaim their city’s narrative. “This city has so much to offer, we wanted to show that Tangier is not just what you see in postcards, camels and local teahouses”.
In the middle of the city where energies, cultures, languages and smells of tagines from kitchens of traditional houses mix, a modern restaurant with a variety of Mediterranean and South African flavour combinations and a selection of ingredients was born. The place also serves as a hub where foreigners and locals, in need of a peaceful, open creative space, come. There is also a small shop that sells products by local designers and artists, as well as a vintage shop.
One of the reasons why I wanted to visit this place was the workshop held there that day. The brain behind it is Anou Collective, an organisation with a vision to preserve the Moroccan tradition of making handmade rugs using sustainable local materials, and to support and protect the artisan women who make the famous Moroccan rugs and scarves. In Morocco, artisans only get 4% of the value of the product, so this organisation was founded in order to provide these wonderful women from different parts of Morocco with what they deserve.
They are nice and warm hearted, creative and fast in their manual work on the loom. They say that it’s not easy to do this work, as it requires practice and concentration. To make one large carpet, it takes a week for the hard-working hands of several women.
The central gathering place in Tangier is the cinema in the Grand Socco Square. La Cinémathèque de Tanger, the first art cinema in North Africa has an interesting story. Yto Barrada, artistic and programme director of the cinema is a world-renowned Moroccan artist responsible for saving the old art deco theatre by transforming it to a cinema. She actively advocates for the revival of film art in Tangier, and the concept she follows is similar to organizing a permanent film festival. The program here includes domestic, Central European, European, Latin and South American films, documentaries, short, animated films.
In a country where many international and local films have been shot, cinemas are closing and there are fewer and fewer opportunities to watch domestic films.
“Tangier is only about 12 kilometres away from Europe, yet the borders are closed to Moroccans, and people are becoming increasingly disconnected. If we can’t physically leave, we can still have a window into the world,” Barrada told the Bidoun magazine.
Let’s continue our exploration and get to know Tangier during the night. We are going to a party as part of the House of Beautiful Business festival on a roof of a building in the old part of the city. Labyrinths of alleys and Moroccans who follow us everywhere and annoy us by offering us “shish”. Until we finally reach the gate of the building where our team has a rented apartment on the top floor. The roofs in the Kasbah have a special charm, because it seems as if you can experience the entire Medina from its rooftops. Hodja overpowers the murmur with his singing several times during the night. We are accompanied by a Moroccan actress and director Fatym Layachi, who tells us how she constantly feels “somewhere in between”, between Morocco and France, between Tangier and Casablanca. Between different religions within her family. She explains to us how she eventually normalized that “in between feeling” and transformed it into creation.
We are all a bit troubled by this question, aren’t we? Do we really belong anywhere or do we float “somewhere in between”? Many people have to leave their home in order to find their real one. Tangier is definitely a place where many have found that part of themselves that they’ve been searching for their entire life.
“Tangier is one of the few places in the world where you can do literally anything you want, except for stealing, violence and socially unacceptable behaviour”, William Burroughs
